Judging by the music on Cut, it's easy to see why Chris Corsano is such an in demand percussionist. Not even in his forties, he's managed to unify several disparate underground scenes with his intelligent percussive banter. This record is quite varied sonically, and displays his signature dizzying speed and control applied to a veritable arsenal of metals, membraphones, and other gadgets (pieces of horns, tubes, wood, etc.). Thankfully he's listed the devices with which he created these 19 "cuts" because at times it's tough to imagine their physical origin. Speed and agility are not the only things on display here, however. Corsano keeps things interesting throughout with droning, clanging, and ambient passages, some recalling the minimalist heroes of the 60's and others echoing a sort of free-form Gamelan. He also somehow achieves the illusion of multiplicity several times without any overdubs.
For example, "Twice Removed" starts with a crash and proceeds to unfold like a Kurosawa battle scene featuring galloping tom toms and crashing cymbals that signal wave after wave of frenzied attack. Cut 3, titled "Shank and Spindle", entrances the listener with melodica, and bowed stringed drum recalling John Cale's work with the Velvet Underground. "Scalpels" squeals and scrapes with horn mouthpieces and plastic tubing metaphorically slicing through the cerebral cortex via the ear canal. It's also the oldest track included here, revealing Corsano's methods at an earlier evolutionary stage.
"Famously Short Arms" is classic Corsano overload, moving at the speed of light in pan-rhythmic abandon. It tips and taps, rolls and claps on wood blocks and other more conventional drum kit elements in a high-wire martial arts exhibition.
"Cut 5" is all screaming harmonics, as if Le Monte Young saw his reflection multiply infinitely in a funhouse mirror. The LP unfolds in a similar manner throughout until reaching "Cut 19", another dense thicket reminiscent of Rashied Ali's all-encompassing approach to rhythm. Simmering metals battle sticks and skins for sonic land rights until triangles and harmonic tube scrapes signal a truce, closing out a stellar LP of percussion fury.
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